Thiel’s point was that most of America didn’t share the rosy view found in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Instead of simply telling people that President Barack Obama was incompetent, he said, a challenger should say the country was broken and needed major change.

But Romney didn’t get it.

Wrote Packer: “He assumed that the more optimistic candidate would always win. He assumed that things were still fundamentally working.”

And the rest is history. Romney lost, and Trump came out with a shockingly pessimistic campaign – daring to say that America wasn’t great anymore – and won.